How To Query A Literary Agent

Congratulations. You have completed your work, but now it’s time to take it to the next level, and for most people that means finding an agent.

Handling Rejection Like A Pro.

No one likes to accept rejection. In all honesty it sucks. No one wants to be told that they are not good enough. A “No,” can literally feel like a slap in the face.

Dear Future Literary Agent.

Hi, how are you? Good I suppose, and busy, really busy with all your clients, and authors, and conventions, and editors and book sales, not to mention those loads of proposals… All that must be extremely exhausting, yet as an agent that must be really satisfying.

I can not wait to have my own work in your hands.

If you are wondering why I am writing to you today, it’s because I want you know that I love you, even though you don’t know who I am, or may have already decided to discard my query email as spam.

It’s not love in any weird romantic kind of way, but just because you are who you are.

Mr. or Ms., you may or may not know how hard it is to remain calm and patiently wait for a response that may never come, from someone who doesn’t even know I exist.

Just the thought alone that, you may have already acknowledged my words, but ignored them terrifies me.

Here I am waiting, some unknown author, among a sea of your other pleading and dire requests, just wondering if possibly you would even consider representing me.

I’m sure if you were to put all of us unpublished authors in a room with you, you’d more than likely would be trampled to death.

“Here’s my manuscript, take it, please!” “Just look at it,” we would all yell and shout.

We would probably pull hair, bite arms, throw punches if we had to, just to get to you, to have a moment of your time, which even then, still may result in a dream crushing, “sorry, not interested.”

You’re like a God in our eyes.

You have the power to make us matter in the face of great publishers, or leave us dangling, desperately trying to cling to our hopes.

I’m sure none of this matters to you, because as a God in the publishing world, you ultimately have the power to make our dreams into a reality. You get to decide if we are worthy enough to have our story told to the world. It takes your faith in us, to make us writers great.

So I love you. I love what you do.

I love that you exist, holding the torch for unknown writers to pass through the dark, and winding road to success. And while I may not matter to you, you certainly matter to me.

Patiently waiting for your call, Yours truly,

An Unpublished Author.

P.S. if you’re having a bad day this might cheer you up, or make you very confused. Either way I believe this is an accurate declaration for how I feel about you. The Brother’s Riedell; I Like You